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I would love a new tesla but at nearly £100,000 it is way out of my price range.. Will the price fall for the Tesla roadster?

dsm363 | March 5, 2011

I believe he may be referring to the Tesla Roadster but not sure. Actually, $57,500 is around 35,300 pounds at the current rate.

Brian H | March 6, 2011

Yep, you diviplied instead of multiding.

Elrcticfan | March 6, 2011

The Tesla Roadster is £90,000 + in the UK, forget the exchange rate, that means nothing.

Timo | March 6, 2011

Almost all European countries pay VAT for cars, which is somewhere around 20-25% of the production price. That could explain the higher price, at least partially. AFAIK in US they don't pay VAT for cars (I'm not sure they pay VAT for anything? Do you?)

Sudre | March 6, 2011

We do not pay anything on the Federal side in the US. It's the States and Local cities that add sales tax and/or personal property tax on to cars. It is typically around 10%, at least in Saint Louis.
Some states are higher but some of them waive the tax for EV's.

What do other cars in the Roadster class cost in the UK? just curious.

Elrcticfan | March 7, 2011

We pay 20% vat on almost everything in the UK. Then we also pay road tax, but for a electric car you wouldn't have to pay road tax. But 20 % is a lot of money on $57,000.

Timo | March 7, 2011

Roadster price before federal tax incentive is $109000. 1.2 times that is 130800, with Dollar-Pound conversion that is 80152.10 GBP.

To answer the original question about the price falling - I think the answer is almost certainly "no", if it's not already apparent, considering two factors:

Roadster production is not going to continue for long as Tesla stops making Roadsters and switches to the 'S', and

I heard that at some point very soon Tesla won't even be taking orders for non-sport Roadsters, as they face the end of the production run, i.e. the last 300 or something [GUESSING!] will be Sport only. So the "base price" goes up by $19K in the US. I only know this because I just ordered a basic model myself.

Of course in the future there will be more Roadster-like vehicles, and they will be cheaper than this Roadster. Some articles on Tesla mention a possible successor to the Roadster as well, somewhere down the line, although I haven't seen much on that topic.

Hope this helps (and isn't too disappointing!),
Ian

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FYI-Roadster production ends this June 2011 and will not return for 7 years. Buy new now or buy used later.

Supergreekster | May 11, 2011

MaryBeth, where do you have this detail from?

Timo | May 11, 2011

I think their contract with Lotus ends then. If they want to produce Roadster after that they need to do it in their own plant, and if they do that I think they make it a whole new thing, and not continue doing what they have done this far.

That info is buried somewhere in here, I have read that as well, just can't find it just now (no search here).

Vawlkus | May 12, 2011

I don't know about the 7 year timeline to resume Roadster production, but this is the end of the lotus gliders being provided/made.

rsdio | June 7, 2011

If you live in Europe, then the Roadster is still available until the end of 2011. Only custom-order production in USA has stopped, and there are still a few on the showroom floors (but basically Sport only by now).

Brian H | June 7, 2011

I repeat, Timo: use any standard search engine, but precede your search terms with the following:
"site:http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/ "

You'll need to use a separate tab for that. Do you know how to tab?
;)
;P